


Halloween 1978

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2506646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sparks fly in an ambush, then different sparks fly in a safehouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halloween 1978

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkrosaleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkrosaleen/gifts).



> Dear Darkrosaleen! I'm not really sure whether this is a trick or a treat now it's finished... sort of a mashup of the two, but more treat than trick? These are the bits I went with from your letter: "light-hearted stuff with shenanigans and intimacy", "drama mixed with humor", "intense friendships, bonding in wartime", "life during wartime", "Halloween"

There was a deep thrum of magic in the air, a heavy pulse so low that Remus doubted anybody could sense it but him. It made the hairs on his arms prickle uncomfortably, although he was glad to know it was there and so strong; the safehouse felt true to its name, locked tighter than anything in Gringotts, and the faint presence of protection charms soaked into the bricks all around them was a comfort he wished the others could feel.

Some bright spark that year had decided to make a stand and organise a Halloween party. _You can't intimidate us_ , they wanted to say. _Look at us, acting like you don't even exist_. Possibly not the best plan in the world, Remus had thought from the very start, with a dreadful uneasiness seeming to unfurl in his stomach like a broken umbrella. It didn't seem all that clever to ignore a band of violent psychopaths even for one night, or to do anything they might decide sounded too much like a challenge: _Try again, chaps. You're not quite making enough noise to be noticed._

But the party planning had gone ahead, as grim-faced and determined as any other mission. Good for morale, or something. Turnips were carved, crusts were cut off tiny sandwiches, somebody's brother's neighbour's band was booked to play, and they all took turns at guarding the doors while everyone else tried awkwardly to dance under the flashing lights and forget there was a real world stumbling by in tatters outside.

Of course there was an ambush when everyone had had enough and the party had fizzled out like a spent sparkler. Alice was walking backwards and still calling goodbyes when a sickeningly lurid beam of Avada Kedavra zipped past so close to her head that it sliced through one of her long plaits and turned her brown hair frizzy and grey for three inches above the place it severed. _Coincidence_ , James said when they were all catching their breath and examining their wounds after a vicious little battle, although his voice was laced with doubt, and Peter added _Yeah, how could they have known where we were?_ Then for a moment Remus thought he saw a narrowing in Sirius' eyes as they moved to meet his own, and a curious clenched look to his jaw.

He wondered, from the calm of the safehouse, whether he'd imagined it. It had only been the briefest flicker of a glance, perhaps too quick even for Remus' enhanced senses to be sure; the night had been dark, and he'd been dazzled by curse-light and half-blinded with blood from a wide gash above his eyebrow, so maybe he was just muddled and remembering wrong. When Sirius saw he'd been injured his face cleared at once and he scrambled to help, as though it were life and death and not something they were all so used to these days that pain had become an annoyance rather than a shock. _More scars for Moony_ , he muttered, tracing the tip of his wand lightly over Remus' forehead to siphon away the blood and clean the cut with a cool blue charm that tickled right down to his skull. _You're lucky I love you for more than your face_.

The kitchen in the safehouse was too loud, James and Sirius working off some leftover adrenaline with a noisy and violent game of snap, so Remus found a spot on the stairs instead, hovering a steaming teacup in front of him so people going up and down wouldn't kick it over, and rested his aching head against the cool painted plaster of the wall. There were reports to write - nobody ever said being a fighter for freedom and the forces of good would involve so much bloody paperwork - and he thought he should probably get a head start on them even though it was gone two in the morning because he was still too jumpy to sleep, but the thought of moving when he was almost comfy was terrible. Instead he stayed where he was, eyes closed, occasionally taking a blind and clumsy sip of tea, listening to the racket drifting through from the kitchen until the soft sound of socked feet on the hall floorboards made him look up.

"Guess what I just saw in the scullery?" Lily said. She came up five steps and sat beside Remus, stealing his tea - like always - then pulling a face because there was no sugar in it. The upper part of her forearm was smeared with vivid orange paste to soothe the part burned by the Death Eaters' curses, and there was a spray of tiny red scabs forming across her cheek after someone's block had ricocheted off the wall and sent bits of brick shrapnel flying, but she was trying and failing to hide a smirk as though nothing had happened.

"Do I really have to guess, or are you going to tell me?"

"Frank and Alice." She started making a lewd gesture with her hands, one he suspected she'd picked up from James or Sirius, sliding her forefinger in and out of her loosely-clenched fist, and Remus laughed in a way that felt too bright and sharp in the stillness of their stairwell.

"Finally."

"I know. Couldn't even make it upstairs. All I wanted was a bottle of wine and there they were going at it over the counter."

"I suppose there's no catalyst for breaking simmering sexual tension quite as effective as a near-death experience."

"I suppose not. They've got the right idea, I think. Make sure to soundproof your room tonight and I'll make sure we do ours."

"What about Peter?"

"Poor Peter," she said, with a quiver of fond laughter in her voice. "We can put a truckle bed in your room for him if you're worried about him being lonely."

" _Goodnight_ , Lily."

She leaned in then to smooth a bit of hair back from his face and kiss him on the temple in lieu of saying goodnight, strangely and soothingly maternal somehow even though she was barely older than him, even though she was trying to stifle her amusement. That was the moment he remembered nine months later when Neville and Harry showed up: her laughter, her gentleness, the way she always wore her love for everybody so openly even in the most horrible of times, and the way she worked night and day to perfect new cushioning and protection charms for herself and Alice so they could carry on fighting to the end - so their babies, unexpected and unplanned but already loved with a fierce devotion strong enough to win wars, would have a better world waiting for them.


End file.
